30 September 2018 8:40 AM

The biggest thing that didn’t happen this year was the final collapse of Bill Clinton’s reputation.

The former President, and his warmongering and strangely supportive wife Hillary, have somehow managed to escape the great ultra-feminist frenzy that has brought down so many men from their pedestals of power and reputation.

Personally, I’m not especially troubled by Bill’s survival. Against my own will, I almost like the terrible old monster. I was once bathed in his chicken-fried charm for a delightful, unforgettable minute when I slipped uninvited into a White House event and asked him an awkward question about Ireland. Ah, I thought, so this is what they mean by charisma.

He may have helped the IRA to win, but he didn’t invade Iraq. There are worse men, and worse women.

In any case, I’m not in favour of ruining people’s lives on the basis of ancient, uncorroborated claims. And I’m less and less interested in other people’s sexual doings. Morals are about what we do when we think nobody is looking. They are not about denouncing other people for doing things that we wouldn’t do ourselves.

But the current attempt to destroy Judge Brett Kavanaugh, nominated for the US Supreme Court, raises a huge question of hypocrisy and inconsistency. None of us, it seems to me, can ever know what happened, if anything happened, between him and his accuser all those years ago. We have to accept that the charges may be true. Equally we have to accept that they may not be. But once made, such charges can ruin the lives of those against whom they are made, whether they are true or not, let alone whether they are proved or not.

I have no idea how such things can be fairly resolved. It has to rest with the consciences of those who make the accusations. Some of them have genuinely suffered and rightly thirst for justice. Others may be confused and unhappy. Others, just possibly, may be making it up. But how can we know which is which? These accusers know what will happen when they speak. Are they sure they want it to happen? Are they sure they are right? Memory being what it is, I’d hesitate greatly about raking up anything from 10 years ago, let alone 36 years ago.

But here is the inconsistency. Why is Judge Kavanaugh being barbecued by the US Senate, while Bill Clinton goes unscathed? Well, yes, they did try and fail to impeach Mr Clinton, but it was the very people who voted against his impeachment who are now trying to unhorse Judge Kavanaugh. It is plainly about politics, not personal morals.

Also, in those days, sexual scandal had a different point to it. In the 1990s marital fidelity was still, just, a big issue, and those who breached it were seen as unreliable in all things. Now, marriage is a foible of the privileged, and the scandals are all about men’s attitudes towards women, and feminism. Well, why isn’t Bill Clinton back in trouble in that case? If his accusers told the truth, he broke the #MeToo code just as much as he betrayed his marriage.

I know more than I ought to about one of the allegations against Mr Clinton. By a series of accidents, I came to have some long conversations with Paula Jones, one of his accusers. She made a persuasive case, not least because she didn’t try to make out that her own behaviour had been totally saintly.

What she told me was in some ways very funny, a comedy of misunderstandings and disappointment. The details are far too rude to recount here. I’ll just say that what she says he wanted to do, didn’t appeal to her. And that, by her account, he took her refusal badly. And he was a powerful man. And she was a powerless woman from a poor background.

But nobody wants to revisit this because, really, this issue is about politics, not about principle. The outrage, as so often, is selective and so not real. I am, above all, sorriest for the families of those accused, and of their accusers. And I wish it wasn’t futile to suggest that a return to the stricter sexual morals of the pre-Pill years would make relations between men and women a lot kinder and more civilised than they seem to be now.

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Why did the 'Bodyguard' hero surrender to the therapists?

The biggest letdown of the BBC’s ‘Bodyguard’ was the fate of its supposed hero, David Budd. After standing his ground against a crooked Prime Minister, MI5, his own police colleagues and a bunch of Islamist suicide bombers, he meekly surrendered to the therapy industry.

And, within weeks of him agreeing to accept that he was a victim of ‘PTSD’, and being presumably stuffed up to the eyeballs with ‘antidepressants’, his broken marriage was restored to health and, smiling and relaxed, he was off on holiday with his happy children – presumably looking forward to a gentle new career investigating historic sex crimes, far from the perilous streets.

Not everybody actually accepts this version of how to be happy. People who have been in danger and combat do no doubt suffer. But is it an illness, or a natural reaction? And can it really be put right by therapy, let alone by dubious pills whose claims have never been properly tested, and whose side-effects can be worse than the problems they claim to treat?

Perhaps Jed Mercurio, and the BBC, might consider a drama about a big pharmaceutical firm trying to prevent the fact coming out about its products? Or is that too close to the truth?

Police tattoos say 'We don't care what you think, and we are not your servants'

The plan to relax the Metropolitan Police rules on tattoos (no doubt to be followed swiftly elsewhere) is yet another snub to the public. Tattoos are frightening and disturbing to many. What the police are saying is that they don’t care what we think. It is yet another demonstration that they have ceased be the servants of the public, and become instead the guardians of the strong and distant state, who regard us and our concerns as a nuisance, like the very worst of the old nationalised industries.

Muddled Charlie is in a sorry state

Lord Falconer, who rose to high office after doing hard time as the Blair Creature’s flatmate, has joined the simpering wide-eyed chorus of deluded, has-been politicians who want to legalise drugs. He has absurdly apologised for supporting so-called ‘prohibition’ of drugs while he was in the Blair government.

Actually, as he really ought to know since he was a Justice Minister, there was no such prohibition. The Blair government, like those before and after, turned a blind eye to the widespread non-enforcement of the law, so greatly increasing the drug problem and the crime and mental illness that come with it.

When I challenged him on this, he whimpered that enforcing the cannabis laws would be too hard. And this from a member of a government that didn’t think it too hard to invade Iraq on false pretexts, so creating endless bloodshed and chaos, or too hard to trash our constitution with ill-designed reforms. If Charlie wants to apologise, he has other things he should say sorry for.

Even if the warmists are right, closing British coal-fired power stations is futile.

While Britain madly closes its remaining coal-fired power stations, so risking power cuts in the near future, because the wind often doesn’t blow and the sun frequently doesn’t shine, China is building dozens of new ones. We know this because the Green pressure group CoalSwarm has studied satellite images and found an enormous 259 gigawatts of new coal-fired generating capacity is under development in China, despite claims by Peking that is cutting coal generation. Even if you believe the Warmist claim that climate change is caused by human activity, China’s coal policy makes our sacrifice of efficient reliable power quite pointless.

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11 September 2018 1:00 PM

WMD All Over Again: Our Government moves stealthily towards a new war of choice.

ISwar coming? This is the traditional season of the year for plunges into war by British governments which mislead themselves and the country about the extent and nature of what is proposed.

In August 1914 we were ushered into war by a government secretly committed to an alliance with France and Tsarist Russia which had never been discussed by Parliament or put to the Cabinet, let alone to the public, who imagined that August day that the war would be chiefly fought at sea, and never imagined vast British Armies dying in the mud of Flanders. That cost four years of privation and death, a huge increase in the power of the state, and turned us into a debtor nation. It liquidated our long-gathered foreign investments and began the process which led to the dissolution of our Empire and Naval supremacy.

We were told ( to distract us from the almost total absence of good reasons for our involvement) it was a war against a barbarous Hunnish nation which raped nuns and threw babies in the air to catch them on its bayonets. There were in fact German atrocities (though not those ones) but they were easily matched by those committed by our Russian allies on the eastern front.

In September 1939 we went to war supposedly to save Poland from Hitler, though we then did precisely nothing to help Poland and watched from afar off while it was wiped from the map. In the war that followed we fell out of the first rank of nations and became, as we have been ever since, a pensioner and servant of the United States.

So it seems to me to be wise to be wary of autumn wars, begun for supposedly good causes. You never know where or how they might end.

This week, the Middle East is in a state of grave and dangerous tension. The huge Sunni Muslim oil power, Saudi Arabia, armed and/or backed diplomatically by Britain, France and the USA, is ever more hostile to Shia Muslim Iran, another oil power not as great but still as important, which is close and growing closer to Russia and China.

Bear in Mind as you consider this that Russia is also a European power, and engaged in a conlfcit with the EU and NATO in formerly non-aligned Ukraine, after the EU’s aggressive attempt to bring Ukraine into the Western orbit and NATO’s incessant eastward expansion into formerly neutral territory. There are several points at which Western troops are now remarkably close to Russian borders, for instance they are about 80 miles from St Petersburg(the distance from London to Coventry) , and the US Navy is building a new Back Sea base at Ochakov, 308 miles from the Russian naval station at Sevastopol. Just as the First World War (at root a conflict between Russia and Germany) spread like a great red stain over much of Europe and the Middle East , an Iran-Saudi war could easily spread into Europe itself.

The two powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran, are not yet in direct combat with each other, but fight through proxies in Yemen and Syria. It would not take much for this to become a direct war, at least as destructive in the region as the Iran Iraq war of 1980-1988, during which the ‘West’ tended to side with Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein, who had started the war and incidentally used chemical weapons at Halabja in 1988, against the Kurds. The attitude of the British Foreign Office towards this atrocity was interesting: They flatly declined to get outraged, saying: ‘We believe it better to maintain a dialogue with others if we want to influence their actions.

‘Punitive measures such as unilateral sanctions would not be effective in changing Iraq's behaviour over chemical weapons, and would damage British interests to no avail.’

The Foreign Office knows very well that its job is to defend British interests abroad, at more or less any cost. These days it seems to have concluded that British interests involve almost total subjection to the wishes of Saudi Arabia. So their current stance of supposed total horror on the subject of Chemical Weapons, especially when (as was not the case in Halabja) their use has not been established beyond doubt, may be less than wholly genuine. You’d have to ask them, but in any case I ask you to bear this half-forgotten episode in mind as you read this exchange from the House of Commons Hansard for Monday 10th September, an exchange barely reported in the media. It resulted from an urgent question asked by Stephen Doughty MP, and answered without any apparent reluctance by Alistair Burt, who I learn to my surprise is officially entitled the ‘Minister for the Middle East’. Does the Iranian Foreign Ministry have a Minister for North-West Europe, I wonder? The whole passage can be read here : https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-09-10/debates/CF970CA2-402E-4CAC-96B4-F480CC33FC7B/Idlib

But I am especially interested in this exchange, Mr Burt's response to a clever question from the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry .I have had rude things to say about and to Ms Thornberry, but in this case she is doing her job properly and should be applauded for it The emphases are mine:

I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth on securing it. I can only echo what he said about the terrible bloodshed and humanitarian crisis that is looming in Idlib, the urgency for all sides to work to find some form of peaceful political solution to avert it, and the importance of holding those responsible for war crimes to account.

I want to press the Government specifically on how they intend to respond if there are any reports over the coming weeks, accompanied by horrifying, Douma-style images, suggesting a use of chemical weapons, particularly ​because of how the Government responded after Douma without seeking the approval of the House and without waiting for independent verification of those reports from the OPCW. If that scenario does arise, it may do so over the next month when the House is in recess.

We know from Bob Woodward’s book that what President Trump wants to do in the event of a further reported chemical attack is to commit to a strategy of regime change in Syria—and, indeed, that he had to be prevented from doing so after Douma. That would be a gravely serious step for the UK to take part in, with vast and very dangerous implications not just for the future of Syria, but for wider geopolitical stability.

In the light of that, I hope that the Minister will give us two assurances today. First, will he assure us that if there are any reports of chemical weapons attacks, particularly in areas of Idlib controlled by HTS, the Government will not take part in any military action in response until the OPCW has visited those sites, under the protection of the Turkish Government, independently verified those reports and attributed responsibility for any chemical weapons used? Relying on so-called open source intelligence provided by proscribed terrorist groups is not an acceptable alternative. Secondly, if the Government intend to take such action, thus escalating Britain’s military involvement in Syria and risking clashes with Russian and Iranian forces, will the Minister of State guarantee the House that we will be given a vote to approve such action before it takes place, even if that means recalling Parliament?

Alistair Burt : The co-ordinated action that was taken earlier this year with the United States and France was not about intervening in a civil war or regime change; it was a discrete action to degrade chemical weapons and deter their use by the Syrian regime in order to alleviate humanitarian suffering. Our position on the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons is unchanged. As we have demonstrated, we will respond appropriately to any further use by the Syrian regime of chemical weapons, which have had such devastating humanitarian consequences for the Syrian population. The right hon. Lady may recall that there are circumstances, depending on the nature of any attack, in which the United Kingdom Government need to move swiftly and to keep in mind, as their utmost priority, the safety of those personnel involved in a mission. I am not prepared to say at this stage what the United Kingdom’s detailed reaction might be or to give any timescale, because the importance of responding appropriately, quickly and with the safety of personnel in mind will be uppermost in the mind of the United Kingdom.’

In other words, we’re not asking Parliament, if we can help it. When I heard this on the BBC’s ‘Today in Parliament' late last night I felt a shiver go down my spine. The White House National Security adviser, the bellicose John Bolton, yesterday presumed (which is not proven, see multiple postings here on the work of the OPCW investigations into these events) that the Assad state had used chemical weapons twice, as he said ‘if there’s a third use of chemical weapons, the response will be much stronger’. He said the USA had been in consultation with Britain and France and they had agreed this. The House of Commons goes into recess *tomorrow* 13th September, for the party conference season, and does not come back until Tuesday 9th October. Ms Thornberry is quite right to speculate that the conflict in Idlib, where Russia and the Assad state are in much the same position as the ‘West’ and the Iraqi state were in Mosul and Raqqa not long ago (i.e confronted with concentrations of a largely beaten Jihadi enemy, who might recover if not finally defeated), could explode during that period.

Careful readers of this blog will know that the conflict in Mosul and Raqqa (as it had been in Ramadi and Fallujah in earlier efforts to save the post-Saddam Iraq state from its Jihadi Sunni enemies) were pretty violent and involved the unintended deaths of non-combatants. Our ally, Saudi Arabia, has used appalling methods in its attacks on Yemen and these have had appalling results. The moralistic bloviation of Western leaders about Syria, Russia and Iran’s parallel war against much the same sort of enemy as Assad and Russia face in Idlib is colossal hypocrisy and I am amazed that they can bring themselves to emit it, though I suspect that they are genuinely ignorant of the facts, not so much by wilfully avoiding them as by lacking the will to discover them. Even more infuriating is their ridiculous insistence, (simply not backed by reliably researched facts, obtained through secure custody chains, a standard set by the OPCW for itself) that the Assad state is guilty of previous chemical weapon use in Khan Sheikhoun and Douma.

But let us leave that to one side. Emily Thornberry, far too rarely among MPs, is aware of the true position. In her question to Mr Burt, she said ‘The Government responded after Douma without seeking the approval of the House and without waiting for independent verification of those reports from the OPCW’.

If she and other wise and cautious MPs are to be able to pursue this, and to prevent British involvement in a very dangerous and perhaps limitless war, we as citizens are obliged to act now, swiftly, before Parliament goes away on holiday.

I ask you to write, swiftly and politely, to your MP, of any reputation or party, to say that you do not favour a rush to war, to say that the guilt of Syria has not been proved in the past (see:

and that a rush to judgement on such issues is almost invariably unwise. See for example the lies told to Parliament about Suez, the use of the Gulf of Tonkin to obtain political support for the USA’s Vietnam disaster, the non-existent ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ which began the Iraq catastrophe and the claims of non-existent massacres and mass rapes used to rush this country into its ill-judged and cataclysmic attack on Libya. Ask only for careful consideration, for an insistence that no military action is taken by this country without Parliament’s permission after a full and calm debate.

it is all we can do.

There are many straws in the wind which suggest that we are being prepared for war. War is hell. At the very least, a decision which could have such far-reaching consequences, which could reach into every life and home, and embroil us for years, should be considered properly. The very fact that our government appears not to want us to consider it properly makes it all the more urgent that we insist on it.

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16 August 2018 11:22 AM

Some of you may enjoy this, my most recent interview with Eric Metaxas, who is (perhaps rather surprisingly) the distinguished biographer of the late Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German Protestant and opponent of the Nazis.

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20 April 2018 10:42 AM

Is this another example of an attack being launched before the verification teams go in to check the facts?

Last night (Thursday 19th April 2018) the distinguished broadcaster Andrew Neil accused me of suggesting that the Western powers might fake chemical warfare attacks in Syria. The accusation of course was as incorrect as it was absurd. Here is the background:

I had been asked to appear at length on Mr Neil’s noted late night discussion programme - which has a generally high level of discussion, owing to Mr Neil’s undoubted intelligence, professionalism and knowledge, rare among BBC presenters.

First, I made a short film summarizing my position, and then I defended it live in the studio. You may watch the film and the discussion here:

Towards the end of that discussion (about 12 minutes and 50 seconds into the extract), Mr Neil made his allegation. A sequence followed in which Mr Neil repeatedly interrupted me in mid-argument and I repeatedly protested that what he was saying was a fabrication. Here is a more or less verbatim account, slightly tidied to aid clarity. I do not think I have omitted anything significant, and would be grateful for any significant corrections or additions.

Mr Neil (AFN) accused me thus: ‘You have speculated that Western countries could have ….can fake such attacks’

I (PH) said ‘I haven’t said anything of the kind’.

Untroubled by my denial, Mr Neil persisted : ‘Yes you did’

He then said: ‘You said in your blog, speaking of Britain, France and America you could say there might be a temptation to fake such attacks (his emphasis). If these major nations (talking about us, America and France) will act in defiance of law, this, to fake them, must surely be a temptation’.

As I attempted to explain to him what I had actually said , that I had been referring to Islamist groups in Syria, saying ‘It must surely be a temptation among the Islamist groups in Syria if the Western countries are prepared to mount attacks on Syria – you interrupt me at every point - if the Western countries (interruption)…I am not. That is a complete fabrication. I have said that the people who would be prepared to fake the attacks would be the Islamist groups - if it is the case that Western countries could be persuaded…you’ve got to check your researcher on this, they have given you a bum steer.’

AFN ‘I have read the blog myself . He then reads my words ‘If these major nations will act in defiance of law this, a fake attack must surely be a temptation

PH ‘A temptation to whom?’

AFN ‘The major nations.’

PH: ‘No, that is not what it says, Go and read it yourself instead of relying on some researcher. You have got it wrong.’

AFN: ‘Mr Hitchens, I read it myself ‘.

PH: ‘I was giving you the benefit of the doubt’

AFN: ‘Maybe you should write more clearly next time’

PH: ‘I have given you the benefit of the doubt, you’ve got it wrong’

AFN: ‘I’ve got it wrong perhaps because your English is not very clear’

PH : ‘I don’t think that is a characteristic I have’.

The discussion then ends abruptly, and I have no further part in the programme.

Here is the section of the blog posting which is under discussion:

‘Imagine this frightening possibility, which arises from that rush to act without facts, on the basis of unverified and unverifiable reports. Might this be a temptation to those who oppose President Assad, to fake such attacks in future? If these major nations will act in defiance of law, and without waiting for verification, this must surely be such a temptation to any cynical person, and I think we may assume there are some cynical people in this conflict on both sides.

‘If they can get the USA, Britain and France directly embroiled in the Syrian civil war, who will pay much attention if a month later the OPCW produces an inconclusive report? Certainly not the politicians and media who cheered on the attack. The OPCW will find its report covered sketchily on page 94 of the unpopular papers, and probably nowhere else except here. And if the resulting attacks lead to direct entanglements between western forces and those of Russia and Iran, then we will be well on the way to a regional war pregnant with the possibilities of world war, a new 1914 in which Iran and Saudi Arabia stand in for Germany and Russia, and the rest of the world eventually piles in, and then cannot find any way out again.’

Let us be utterly mathematical about this. The passage beginning 'If they can get the USA, Britain and France directly embroiled in the Syrian civil war...' makes it clear beyond doubt that the 'they' to which I refer cannot be the USA, Britain and France. How could I be accusing the USA, Britain and France of attempting to influence themselves?

18 April 2018 1:43 PM

‘A FORMER head of Britain's Special Forces has challenged Theresa May's claim that President Assad was behind the chemical attack in Douma.

‘Major General Jonathan Shaw said: “Why would Assad use chemical weapons at this time? He's won the war. That's not just my opinion, it is shared by senior commanders in the US military. There is no rationale behind Assad's involvement whatsoever.

“He's convinced the rebels to leave occupied areas in buses. He's gained their territory. So why would he be bothering gassing them?” Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, the ex-SAS and Parachute Regiment commander added: “The jihadists and the various opposition groups who've been fighting against Assad have much greater motivation to launch a chemical weapons attack and make it look like Assad was responsible. Their motivation being that they want to keep the Americans involved in the war - following Trump saying the US was going to leave Syria for other people to sort out.” His views were echoed by Admiral Lord West, former head of the Royal Navy, who said: “If I was advising President Assad, why would I say use chemical weapons at this point? It doesn't make any sense. But for the jihadist opposition groups I can see why they would.

“But one must give Theresa May the benefit of the doubt and trust she has seen some unequivocal evidence which leaves no doubt that Assad was behind the atrocity.” But the ex-commander of the Army's chemical weapons regiment, Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, said: “A sophisticated nerve agent was used at Douma, not just chlorine. Only Assad has the capability to produce these substances inside Syria. And using chemical weapons is his standard modus operandi.”

This offers an explanation for the way in which the General was suddenly cut off in mid-flow just as he was saying something which many viewers might not have expected from a senior, highly-experienced military officer whose courage and judgement are beyond doubt.

Who can judge its validity? In my experience broadcasters find time for what they want to show and don’t find time for what they don’t want to show. I was myself once abruptly dumped by Sky News *after* I had arrived (unpaid, and not in the expectation of monetary reward, since you ask) at their studio at their request at some inconvenience. But there. Who can ever say, without internal knowledge which we do not now possess?

And there we are, back again, with this question of knowledge. Here we see two distinguished military leaders, men who have seen combat and have a good knowledge of politics. And they say, much as I have often done, that it made no military or political sense for President Assad to use Chemical Weapons either last week or earlier. Peter Ford, a former British ambassador in Damascus from 2003 to 2006 has frequently said the same, adding (presumably from personal acquaintance) that however bad Mr Assad may be, he is not mad.

From this some shocking possibilities emerge. But I am not prepared to speculate about them because I have concluded that we must restrict ourselves to known, demonstrable, testable, falsifiable facts on this matter. Currently we have none. What we must repeatedly remind ourselves of is what we do not know. Jeremy Corbyn, in his speech on Monday, made a significant and common error in claiming knowledge on an issue where the matter is in fact unclear. He said : ‘As the Prime Minister will be aware, there were US strikes in 2017 in the wake of the use of chemical weapons in Khan Shaykhun, for which the UN OPCW team held the Assad regime to be responsible.’ This is incorrect. The OPCW did not do so. It is not the OPCW’s job. The body which concluded that the Syrian state was responsible was the JIM (Joint Investigative Mechanism) which did so not on the basis of objective knowledge, for it had no conclusive knowledge at all - but on the basis of subjective opinion. This was why, as I understand it, the Russian Federation refused to support the further operations of the JIM and it has ceased to exist.

Sherlock Holmes, the great fictional detective, propounded two useful maxims for deduction. In the first, he warned that it is a capital error to theorise without data. In the second, (in ‘The Sign of Four’) he said ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’.

Well, we have yet to eliminate anything because there has still been no independent scientific investigation of the claims. I am not prepared to speculate about it because I have absolutely no data, positive or negative, of such a thing having taken place. What is more, before forming any judgement on the Douma event I am committed to reading (though with very great care) the report which the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will eventually produce. As readers here know, I think the reports of this body need to be read with extremely close attention and self-restraint, to be properly understood. Much in them is circumstantial, and most especially in the case of Khan Shaykhun, based upon second hand accounts from unnamed sources. Sometimes politically interested parties draw conclusions from them which are not justified by the actual text. To me they demonstrate mainly just how very difficult it is to be sure about such matters, when attacks take place on contested territory.

It was also interesting last week to see James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, a craggy old US Marine General who is now US Secretary for Defence, , and the extraordinarily inexperienced Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the UN, not quite seeing eye to eye on the question of evidence. Ms Haley was satisfied that gas had been used. Mattis said he believed Assad had used gas (I am not sure why he thought this) but stressed that he and the Pentagon did not actually know this, and deigned to mention the annoying fact that the OPCW had not yet begin their investigation at Douma.

My guess is that General Mattis, despite his ‘mad dog’ name, is actually quite a wise person. He may even privately have suspicions similar to those of Admiral Lord West and Major General Shaw. And I suspect that he, perhaps supported by Mrs May and President Macron (I am being generous to them here), may have got the original attack toned down. There has to be some explanation of the gap between Mr Trump’s fist-pounding rhetoric on Twitter and the very limited scale of the firework display we actually got. Someone somewhere pointed out that this was not the time or the place to test the effectiveness of modern Russian anti-aircraft missiles. The same someone must have mentioned the risk of Russian deaths, and the obligation this would place on president Putin to retaliate. Looking at the whole gallery of unprepossessing personnel now in charge in Washington DC, I think General Mattis looks like the sensible one.

I’d like to relax over this, but there is a nagging, frightening problem about this, which is why I mentioned the speculation about the genuineness of the widely-accepted accounts of the Douma attack, which is bound to follow the raising of doubts over the claims by serious figures.

We have seen the USA, Britain and France, all law-governed states with free media and parliaments, launching legally dubious ( again, I am being generous here. I suspect these attacks were illegal but will be without consequences because they have widespread political support and casualties seem to have been avoided) attacks on a sovereign state without any proof of the crime against which they are acting, and indeed deliberately not waiting for such proof to be obtained. The more I think about this behaviour the more extraordinary it seems to me to be. Equally extraordinary is the willing, even enthusiastic and machismo-infected acceptance of it by politicians and media who (quite rightly) will often question American court decisions to execute persons who have been convicted of heinous murders after long trials and repeated appeals.

Imagine this frightening possibility, which arises from that rush to act without facts, on the basis of unverified and unverifiable reports. Might this be a temptation to those who oppose President Assad, to fake such attacks in future? If these major nations will act in defiance of law, and without waiting for verification, this must surely be such a temptation to any cynical person, and I think we may assume there are some cynical people in this conflict on both sides.

If they can get the USA, Britain and France directly embroiled in the Syrian civil war, who will pay much attention if a month later the OPCW produces an inconclusive report? Certainly not the politicians and media who cheered on the attack. The OPCW will find its report covered sketchily on page 94 of the unpopular papers, and probably nowhere else except here. And if the resulting attacks lead to direct entanglements between western forces and those of Russia and Iran, then we will be well on the way to a regional war pregnant with the possibilities of world war, a new 1914 in which Iran and Saudi Arabia stand in for Germany and Russia, and the rest of the world eventually piles in, and then cannot find any way out again.

This region is a tangle of bizarre alliances of convenience, but they all revolve around Saudi Arabia’s furious, sectarian loathing of Iran. My own personal view, based on a visit to Iran is that Iran is not the aggressor in this quarrel, not least because Shia Islam, despite the efforts of Ayatollah Khomeini, is fundamentally not a warlike creed, and the appalling cost of the ‘imposed war’ with Iraq still haunts Iranian politics and culture. The war cemeteries near Teheran are as vast and distressing as the First World War graveyards of the Somme. And a lot newer. Plenty of Iranian people still in the midst of active lives have relatives lying in those enormous graveyards. Unpolitical Iranians unsympathetic to the regime, to my personal knowledge, are overpoweringly moved by them

But many other factors are involved. Iran’s defence of its Syrian ally has brought into even closer friendship with the Hizbollah militias who have done much of the fighting against the Saudi-backed Sunni militias in Syria. Some reports say that Israel’s attack on Syria last week had more to do with Israeli fears that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is seeking to install serious air defences covering its bases in Syria, than in any retaliation for Douma.

Israel (in my view wholly mistakenly) is preoccupied almost beyond reason with an alleged threat from Iran, and this has brought Jerusalem into a sort of informal alliance with, of all people, Saudi Arabia. It has also done great damage to what until recently was one of the most fascinating diplomatic rapprochements in modern history, the remarkably warm friendship between Moscow and Jerusalem, much encouraged by Vladimir Putin. But last week’s Israeli attack on the Iranians in Syria greatly annoyed the Kremlin, which values its close ties with Teheran.

This is perhaps why the USA is so reluctant to leave Syria alone. President Trump seems to have accepted the Netanyahu vision of the Middle East, in which Iran is the great threat, and is seeking power in Syria and Lebanon so as to threaten Israel. And this vision is the likely source of the growing readiness of the USA to get and stay involved in the area, with France and Britain the fifth and six wheels in its military cart, reliable cover for whenever the USA is accused of acting in its own interests rather than for some grand global ideal.

The paradox of this is that the USA is acting for a global ideal, is genuinely persuaded that its interventions in this area are aimed at some sort of common good. I suspect they are intended to eliminate the (undoubtedly nasty) Iranian regime. Well, the Iraq war was aimed at the elimination of the undoubtedly nasty Saddam Hussein. And look where that got us). Saddam was indeed eliminated, but at a price we are still paying. Likewise the undoubtedly nasty Gadaffi was eliminated in Libya. But his replacements were no nicer. And the ultimate price of both these things together, the unprecedented movement of people in search of better safer lives which they created, will probably be the continued maintenance of Europe as a post-Christian pluralist continent.

So the USA’s interests, and those of the people of the fast-declining western world, are not served by this belligerence. A major war in the Middle East, one with more danger of going nuclear than any in modern times and one which will quite possibly spread to Europe, will end with only one victor, China, just as the USA was the great beneficiary of Britain’s and France’s attempts to maintain their dying greatness a century ago. And China watches, interested and amazed at our folly, as we talk ourselves into this.

18 March 2018 12:01 AM

Is this a warning? In the past few days I have begun to sense a dangerous and dark new intolerance in the air, which I have never experienced before. An unbidden instinct tells me to be careful what I say or write, in case it ends badly for me. How badly? That is the trouble. I am genuinely unsure.

I have been to many countries where free speech is dangerous. But I have always assumed that there was no real risk here.

Now, several nasty trends have come together. The treatment of Jeremy Corbyn, both by politicians and many in the media, for doing what he is paid for and leading the Opposition, seems to me to be downright shocking.

I disagree with Mr Corbyn about many things and actively loathe the way he has sucked up to Sinn Fein. But he has a better record on foreign policy than almost anyone in Parliament. Above all, when so many MPs scuttled obediently into the lobbies to vote for the Iraq War, he held his ground against it and was vindicated.

Mr Corbyn has earned the right to be listened to, and those who now try to smear him are not just doing something morally wrong. They are hurting the country. Look at our repeated rushes into foolish conflict in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan. All have done us lasting damage.

Everyone I meet now thinks they were against the Iraq War (I know most of them weren’t, but never mind). So that’s over.

But Libya remains an unacknowledged disgrace. David Cameron has not suffered for it, and those who cheered it on have yet to admit they were mistaken.

Yet we pay for it, literally, every day. Along with our clinically insane covert intervention on the side of Al Qaeda in Syria, the Libyan adventure created the unending migration crisis across Europe which, in my view, threatens the stability of the whole continent.

Yet I recall a surge of anger from the audience when I doubted some crude war propaganda about mass rapes in Libya on the BBC’s Question Time. War is strangely popular, until it comes to your own doorstep.

I sense an even deeper and more thoughtless frenzy over Russia, a country many seem to enjoy loathing because they know so little about it.

I have already been accused, on a public stage, of justifying Moscow’s crime in Salisbury. This false charge was the penalty I paid for trying to explain the historical and political background to these events. I wonder if the bitterness also has something to do with the extraordinarily deep division over the EU, which has made opponents into enemies in a way not seen since the Suez Crisis.

In any case, the crude accusation, with its implication of treachery, frightened me. I expect, as time goes by, I will be accused of being an ‘appeaser’ and of being against ‘British values’. And then what? An apparatus of thought policing is already in place in this country. By foolishly accepting bans on Muslim ‘extremists’, we have licensed public bodies to decide that other views, too, are ‘extremist’.

Because the authorities are terrified of upsetting Islam, nothing much will happen to Muslim militants. But conservative and Christian views such as mine will suffer.

Christian and Jewish schools, especially ones which have conservative views on marriage and sex education, increasingly find themselves in trouble. Even mainstream Catholic and C of E schools are under stealthy attack, with attempts made to stop them ‘discriminating’ in favour of pupils from Christian homes.

Ofsted now says that ‘all schools’ have a ‘duty to actively promote fundamental British values’, which sounds totalitarian to me. This includes so-called ‘mutual respect and tolerance of values different from their own’. Actually, there is nothing mutual about it. The sexual revolution fanatics demand submission, and offer no tolerance in return. Now the freedom to educate children at home, always a barometer of liberty, is being seriously threatened for the first time in our history. The pretext for this is supposed fears of child abuse or ‘extremism’. The real reason is that so much home education rejects the so-called ‘British values’ of multiculturalism and sexual liberation.

What next? ‘British values’ over foreign policy, war, immigration? I expect so. TV and the internet have for years been promoting a leaden conformism, whose victims are actually shocked – and often angry – when anyone disagrees.

There’s no real spirit of liberty left in this country.

Yes, I am scared, and I never have been before. And so should you be.

War, or the danger of war, is always an opportunity to silence troublemakers.

Nato is the real barrier to peace

If Nato was dissolved tomorrow, you’d be amazed how peaceful Europe would become. The reason for its existence – the USSR – vanished decades ago. We don’t keep up a huge alliance to protect us from the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Ottomans, or any other powers that have disappeared. So why this one? It was preserved to save the jobs and pensions of its staff. It was only expanded because American arms manufacturers were afraid they would lose business when the Cold War ended.

So they spent huge piles of cash lobbying the US Senate to back eastward expansion, as the New York Times uncovered. Having survived and expanded, it needed something to do, and began to infuriate the Russians, and so that is where we now are. If you look for trouble, you get it.

Here’s a true story from the days when we were bringing feminism and comprehensive schooling to Afghanistan, or whatever it was we were trying to do by sending troops there.

It is Christmas Day in a forward position. A young, idealistic officer, recently arrived from Sandhurst, says to a grizzled sergeant: ‘It’s jolly quiet today. Surely the Afghans don’t observe Christmas?’ And the sergeant replies: ‘No sir, it’s quiet because we’re not going out there and annoying them.’

I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

I couldn’t care less if they melt down all the hideous one and two cent coins wrongly known as pennies and two pence pieces. Australia and New Zealand got rid of their equivalents nearly 20 years ago, and nobody seems to have suffered much.

***

It will be a funny old world without Ken Dodd

How I wish I had been to see Ken Dodd before he died. He was a historical monument to a Britain of backyards, milkmen, brown ale, teatime biscuits, rent collectors, town clerks, vicars and mothers-in-law, all now endangered species. When everyone who remembers these things has gone, his humour will become a mystery, like a Cro-Magnon cave painting.

***

I was genuinely sad to see our real coinage go, proper heavy money that was worth something and a history lesson in your pocket. But these cheap, ugly, useless steel discs just remind me of how far we have fallen.

***

Last week there was a mugging on the secluded, picturesque path I often take on my way home. It wasn’t the first. For me, such places, away from crowds and noise, are one of the great joys of life. And, for all the time since I was born until very recently, it never crossed my mind that seclusion might also mean danger. Now it does. How very dispiriting and sad.

***

The Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, admitted last week it had been a mistake not to give the late Bishop George Bell a defending counsel at the kangaroo court which wrongly convicted him of child abuse. When will he admit that he has made a similar mistake by refusing to allow Bell’s niece, Barbara Whitley, to pick a lawyer to defend him against the mysterious second allegation now levelled against him in secret? Too late, for sure.

****

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29 October 2017 2:39 PM

Some readers may like to listen to this appearance on BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House this morning(Sunday 29th October)

In which we discuss coarseness and feminism's failure(in my view) to challenge it, Michael Gove's alleged joke, whether his audience should be made to apologise for laughing at it, the exhumation of the late David Kelly, Women in sport, Universal Credit, the disappearance of the Cox's Orange Pippin, the wrongful treatment of Jihadi Jack' and the NHS attitude towards teenagers who think they are in the wrong body

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20 July 2017 1:26 PM

This despatch, from my friend Patrick Cockburn, is a useful reminder that the defeat of IS in Mosul has net been cost-free, and has not led to an immediate total triumph for the forces of goodness. It is a pity that The Independent is no longer published as a print edition, as such reports have more impact in this form, I believe, than they can on the internet.

16 July 2017 1:06 AM

The Government won’t publish its own report into who funds Islamist extremism in this country. The Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, comically claims that she is gagging herself for reasons of national security.This is the same Government that – also in the name of national security – happily attacks civil liberty, demands the power to pry into our phone calls and emails, and searches for ‘extremists’ in schools and universities. It is the most astonishing development of the week. But more fuss was made when Ms Rudd’s hat blew off at some ceremony than was made about this sinister decision.Like almost all suppressed reports about terrorism in London or Washington DC, the truth that is being kept from us is that great danger comes from Saudi Arabia, HQ of the most fanatical and intolerant Islamism on the market.Nobody really doubts that this report, if published, would say that. The pathetic scraps of the document which Ms Rudd allowed into the open last week hinted strongly at it, for those who knew where to look. Her statement said: ‘For a small number of organisations with which there are extremism concerns, overseas funding is a significant source of income.’Hurriedly, she added: ‘However, for the vast majority of extremist groups in the UK, overseas funding is not a significant source.’ Why ‘however’? So what? If foreign funds are significant at all, that’s what we need to know. Because she also said: ‘Overseas support has allowed individuals to study at institutions that teach deeply conservative forms of Islam and provide highly socially conservative literature and preachers to the UK’s Islamic institutions. Some of these individuals have since become of extremist concern.’By ‘socially conservative’ they don’t mean me. They mean those who support the forcible shrouding of women and who froth hatred of Jews. How mealy mouthed to call it ‘conservatism’. But our Government is terrified of offending the Saudis, terrified beyond reason or self-respect.That’s why flags fly at half-mast in London when Saudi monarchs die, and why Theresa May, poor thing, had to accept the King Abdulaziz Sash last April, a decoration awarded for ‘meritorious service’ to the despotic kingdom. I look forward to seeing her wearing it.I’m a realist. I can see that we have to grovel a bit to the Saudis, because we’re not as rich and powerful as we used to be, and we need their money. But doesn’t this go too far when we suppress a report which might help us combat terrorism on our own streets, just to spare the blushes of a foreign tyranny?

Mosul... a stunning victory for hypocrisy

The only mercy in war is a swift victory. We delude ourselves if we think you can capture a defended modern city with bombs and guns without doing dreadful things. Fanatical jihadis are expert at terrorising the population of such cities, preventing them from fleeing and then using them as human shields. The shields die, in unknown thousands. So I am very glad to see the end of the battle of Mosul.Last December, I was just as relieved when the Syrian state, backed by Russian air power, crushed equally ruthless Islamist fanatics in Aleppo. But at that time I was surrounded by a media chorus accusing the Russians of terrible war crimes. I pointed out that this was a double standard. If we did the same, we would excuse it.I then asked those damning the Russians and Syrians: ‘When Mosul falls, as it will, and those who defeated IS are applauded, as they will rightly be, please think about this.’As it happens, one rather courageous voice, Amnesty International, last week produced a careful and thoughtful report, pointing out that the West and its allies had taken less care than they might have done to avoid killing innocents in Mosul. My view of this is that’s what war is like. If you don’t like atrocities, don’t start wars. What was interesting was that a British general then let fly at Amnesty. Major General Rupert Jones, the deputy commander of the international coalition against IS, said Amnesty were naive to think a huge city such as Mosul could be captured without any civilian casualties, while fighting a merciless enemy. I rather agree with him, though Amnesty’s point was that some of those deaths might have been avoided.But if a Russian general had said exactly the same about Aleppo last December, as he would have been completely entitled to do, he would have been torn to shreds as a barbaric war criminal by Western media and politicians. The old rule applies. You can’t have it both ways. Either you accept that war against such enemies is bound to have bloody results, or you don’t. But don’t justify your own unintended but cruel actions, while condemning those of others. There’s a word for that which I can’t quite think of just now.

Ignoring the killer question

Thames Valley Police got oodles of good publicity from last week’s Channel 4 film of their investigation of a crazy murder in Oxford.The ultra-violent killing of an art dealer seemed inexplicable. But today’s surveillance society, which tracks phones and cars so precisely, brought police rapidly to Michael Danaher’s door.Danaher, known to his family as a gentle giant, seemed an unlikely suspect. But he had in recent years undergone a huge personality change. He is said to have been mentally ill, and ‘depressed’.I saw what looked like a pattern. I wondered if, like so many people whose characters change utterly and who commit acts of extraordinary violence against themselves or others, he might have been taking mind-altering drugs. I believe this may be the Thalidomide scandal of the future. I constantly seek information to see if it may be true.So I asked Thames Valley Police if they had any information on this. They absolutely wouldn’t discuss it. Data protection – which hadn’t prevented them allowing a Channel 4 crew to film their investigation – somehow made it impossible.If the authorities simply can’t be bothered to be interested in this connection, how will we ever find out if it is real?

A cinematic show trial that's nothing to do with tolerance

The lights dimmed in the cinema for the advertisements, and I prepared to cram my fingers into my ears against the noise of some deafening car commercial.Instead I got a short film of a miserable middle-aged geezer sitting alone and desolate in a shadowy, unfashionable house, speaking to his absent son, who has come out as homosexual. Now he is really sorry for having ‘said some hateful things and then you left and [deep sigh] that was the worst day of my life’.‘I’m sorry, I’m proud of you for being you,’ he says, among other things. It certainly had the effect of quieting down the audience. And it made me appreciate the non-political ads which followed for their simple, ordinary crassness. As far as I’m concerned the debate about homosexuality ended ages ago and I’m not interested in it. But this mini-drama, which seemed to last about five minutes but is, in fact, only 30 seconds long, had a nasty, triumphal air about it. The man (an actor – this wasn’t a real-life story) looked to me like the defendant at a show trial, confessing his sins against Big Brother before being taken down to the cellars and shot. I’m not sure tolerance is what we’re getting here.

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I recommend anyone seriously concerned over the future peace of the world to read it carefully, as I have done, especially Members of Parliament, Congressmen, Deputies etc. It may be important that as many active and conscious citizens of free countries as possible are properly informed of what it actually contains. I very much welcome any corrections or criticisms.

All emphases in the text are mine.

The link will take you to the OPCW’s recent report on the Chemical Weapons (CW) episode at Khan Sheikhoun in Syria, an area under the control of the Islamist insurgent group which as traded under various names but which I tend to refer to as al Nusra. Al Nusra now seeks a new image but was for some years the local franchise of ‘Al Qaeda’ and is therefore a strange ally for the USA and Britain to have. Even so, Western diplomacy in the area very much favours as Nusra over the current Syrian government. Neither , it is true, is very nice. But then that is exactly why one must wonder why Western powers would go to such lengths to help a body such as al Nusra. If they were law-abiding democrats and followers of J.S.Mill, I could see it. But a private army of ultra-violent Islamists seems an unlikely recipient of western backing.

The Khan Sheikhoun event, last April, has been claimed by the British government as being almost certainly the work of the Syrian state headed by its President Bashar Assad. In one case noted below the assertion of guilt by the UK governmnet was unqualified. It was the pretext for the US Government’s later cruise missile raid on a Syrian Air Force field, on the assumption that the events had been caused by the deliberate actions of the Syrian state. As far as I can discover, this missile attack was entirely contrary to international law, about which the US and UK governments claim to be very concerned, especially our own Foreign Office. But the USA did it, and the UK backed it, as I think did France.

Note the unqualified use of the verb ‘launched’, unsoftened by any of the normal cautious adverbs of diplomacy and legality, such as ‘allegedly’ or ’apparently’. I have asked Downing Street to explain this certainty.

For it is this rush from suspicion to certainty which scares me so much. Crises don’t come in identical packages, but the British and French states (the French are very involved in this) are both going down a twisting lane very similar to one Britain took over Iraq. They are so convinced of their case that they cannot examine the facts objectively any more.

I reproduce this passage for those who may have missed it the first time: ‘Any report which comes from that region is filtered through people who you never see in the film that does get out. I have met men like them on my travels. I would not want to offend them.

These are the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, alias the Al-Nusra Front, alias Al Qaeda, the Syrian ‘opposition’ which we in the West have been supporting for several years. Yes, that’s right, the people we have been helping are not Liberal Democrats or Girl Guides or Quakers.

No, they are the same movement which destroyed Manhattan’s Twin Towers. The only big difference between them and Islamic State is that we drop bombs on Islamic State. And we drop bombs on behalf of Al-Nusra/Al Qaeda.

I’ve noted here before how these people have publicly kidnapped, killed and even sunk their teeth into the entrails of dead enemies. But in this case, another small detail may make you wonder about what you are being told.

In some reports of the alleged atrocity, a supposed ‘British doctor’, Shajul Islam, was quoted or shown on the spot, described as a ‘volunteer treating victims in hospital’. Actually, he shouldn’t really be called a British doctor. He was struck off the British medical register for ‘misconduct’ in March 2016.

The General Medical Council won’t say why. And in 2012 Shajul Islam was charged with terror offences in a British court.

He was accused of imprisoning John Cantlie, a British photographer, and a Dutchman, Jeroen Oerlemans.

Both men were held by a militant group in Syria and both were wounded when they tried to escape. Shajul Islam, it was alleged, was among their captors.

Shajul Islam’s trial collapsed in 2013, when it was revealed that Mr Cantlie had been abducted once again, and could not give evidence. Mr Oerlemans refused to give evidence for fear that it would further endanger Mr Cantlie. Mr Oerlemans has since been killed in Libya. So the supposedly benevolent medical man at the scene of the alleged atrocity turns out to be a struck-off doctor who was once put on trial for kidnapping.’

Then there is the simple problem of what Assad could possibly hope to gain by using poison gas, when it is the one action he could take which was certain to bring the USA openly and fully into his civil war, on the side of al Nusra. What conceivable gain, on the battlefield or otherwise, could possibly counterbalance such a huge diplomatic and military reverse as winning the armed and active enmity of a superpower? Assad is cruel and ruthless, but he is not stupid and he has, to the astonishment of many, survived long after many commentators thought he would be gone. He does not wish to be incinerated by a cruise missile targeted on his personal bunker, nor does he wish to be tried at the Hague and sent to prison for the rest of his life. So why take an action that risks these outcomes?

Next there is the fact that accounts of the alleged gas attack come to us through some pretty powerful filters. I have no opinions on what actually happened, by the way. I wasn’t there before the event, at the time or afterwards and have no way of knowing. No independent western journalists or diplomats or others qualified to make reports were there either. The area was and remains under the control of ultra-violent fanatics. I doubt that they would let me in if I asked them to, and would not feel safe that they would then left me out afterwards. Nor would I feel able to be sure of the testimony of any person whose life was under their control or influence.

This is why I concentrate entirely on what we do *not* know. And why I am astonished at the confidence of some other parties about what did happen. How and why can they be so sure? Let us turn to the OPCW report itself, and see where it leaves us.

I shall refer to the report’s own paragraph numbers, which are clearly shown. I urge readers to make their own studies, and indeed to read the document in full. It is much easier to do so if you print it out.

The key sections are para 6 , which says : ‘Based on its work, the FFM is able to conclude that a large number of people, some of whom died, were exposed to sarin or a sarin-like substance. The release that cause this exposure was most likely initiated at the site where there is now a crater in the road. It is the conclusion of the FFM that such a release can only be determined as the use of sarin, as a chemical weapon.

… and para 7, which adds : ‘As regards the question of an on-site visit by the FFM to the scene of the incident, it is an area located outside the effective control of the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic. It is to be noted that the use of sarin or a sarin-like substance is not questioned. This is also evident from the position of the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic which provided to the FFM its own information and materials as evidence. Since the mandate of the FFM is confined to establishing only the fact of the use of chemical weapons, the security risks associated with a deployment to Khan Shaykhun far outweighed any additional corroboration of the facts that have already been established. The Director-General has therefore decided that the FFM will not undertake an on-site visit to Khan Shaykhun.’

I’d note here that modern analysts are able, given good samples of poison gas, to be extraordinarily precise about where it comes from and whose it is. What’s more, Western governments and, as far as I know, the OPCW, have had detailed access to the Syrian government’s poison gas stocks, which were destroyed under supervision in June 2014 aboard the ship MV Cape Ray , which belongs to the US Maritime Administration. So why the vague conclusion referring to ‘ sarin or a sarin-like substance’, a phras repeatedly used in the report.

Well para 7 gives part of the answer. The OPCW didn’t want to risk going there, quite reasonably in my view . As they put it, rather tactfully, ‘The security risks associated with a deployment to Khan Shaykhun far outweighed any additional corroboration of the facts that have already been established’.

And note, it is not the Syrian Government that’s stopping them going there. Assad, as they point out, does not control the area. So you will have to deduce for yourselves what sort of ‘security risks’ the OPCW is worried about. They are, of course, the same risks which kept Western journalists and diplomats from going there, at the time of the event or later.

But the fundamental point is: they didn’t go there. In fact they think the fact that they did not go there is so important that they mention it over and over again. See if you can count the mentions.

We don’t know much detail about the gas. This is because ‘environmental’ samples, taken at the site by qualified technicians, preserved carefully and safe from interference in a known and detailed ‘custody chain’ from scene to laboratory, are essential for any such determination.

This simply didn’t happen. See Para 3.46

‘Typically, samples from an incident would be collected by the investigating team immediately after the incident, using approved procedures and equipment, including full documentation of the chain of custody of the samples. As noted earlier, the team was constrained due to the inability to access the site of the alleged incident and the amount of time that had passed between the alleged incident and receipt of samples by the team (depending on the source, between 1 week and 2 months after the incident). As a result, the team was unable to: (a) assess the geography and conditions of the location of the alleged incident; (b) directly select sampling points and items; (c) conduct on-site collection of samples; and (d) implement a complete chain of custody, by the team, for samples from source.

The report is extraordinarily coy about where it *did* examine those samples that it had. It refers repeatedly to a ‘neighbouring country’, plainly Turkey. Why doesn’t it name Turkey? It is unlikely to have been Israel, Jordan or Lebanon, I think. Anyone can guess it is Turkey. Could it be because the Turkish government is, like the USA, Britain, France and Saudi Arabia, a known opponent of the Syrian state and sympathiser with the anti-government jihadists, , and what is more a country in which the freedom of speech, the neutrality of the civil service and of the press is currently being vigorously suppressed, and therefore cannot provide a dispassionate background for the forensic examination of samples.

On the ‘chain of custody' itself, para 3.66 is categorical. There isn’t one. I have asked British government and other advocates of the ‘Syria did it, obviously’ faction about this chain many times. I get no answer but here it is from the OPCW itself, their own main source.

3.66 Most of the samples delivered to the FFM (Fact Finding Mission) were supported by witness testimony and accompanied by documents, including photographs and video. Although the documentation and testimony, in most cases, provided a good degree of confidence in the chain of custody prior to receipt by the FFM, the entire chain of custody could not be categorically verified. Such samples included biomedical samples that were not collected in the presence of team members, environmental samples, and dead creatures (referred to biological-environmental samples).

No verifiable Chain of Custody

Well, if the entire chain of custody could not be categorically verified. You have not actually got anything resembling reliable evidence. The chain of custody is vital because without it nobody can establish that the material came from where it is said to have come from, or was definitely not tampered with , added to or subtracted to on its journey to the laboratory. In such a contentious issue as this, to admit that the entire chain of custody could not be categorically verified is deeply damaging to the claims then based on the material involved. Please remember this, when the issue comes up again, and indeed in future such cases.

Do I detect in this section a suggestion that others, unnamed , may have messed about with the site? You judge. But once again the OPCW stresses that it unable to deal with this:

‘3.57 As with other evidence, visits to the site of an alleged incident and collection of evidence at the site would have provided the most valuable input, particularly if the collection could have been done very close to the time of the alleged incident. 3.58 Further means of validation would ideally be provided by comparing observations from interviewees against the expected behaviour of a known device or theoretical design. Given the uncertainty around the volume of the chemical and how it might behave under unknown energetic and mechanical dispersion conditions, it would not be possible to compare the theoretical dispersion of chemicals and fragments to that described by interviewees and shown in photographs and videos. 3.59 Exploitation of the site by other parties also adversely impacted the FFM’s ability to receive a broader range of evidence from the site and build a picture of the alleged method of dispersion.’

This mention is also odd. How come the main state hospital in the area had been ‘taken out of service a few days earlier’? as described here?

5.23 Initially, no patients were transferred to Al Ma’arra National Hospital, which was the main hospital in the region, as it was taken out of service a few days earlier. It is unclear whether or not this facility opened later in the day on a limited basis to support the treatment of casualties.

Whatever the reason, several patients were instead taken to ‘Medical facility F’ (MF-F).

So look at 5.21 A number of casualties were initially transferred to MF-F. The local headquarters of the SCD were also located in the vicinity of the medical centre. Once it became apparent to the staff of the hospital and to the SCD that they were dealing with a potential chemical incident, patients were washed with water by the fire crew of the SCD upon arrival. 5.22 Given the limited health care capability at MF-F, patients were transferred to several different medical facilities in the region, either passing through MF-F or going directly to other facilities…’

I also draw attention here to evidence given to OPCW by interviewees in Damascus (and therefore within reach of the Syrian stateand seemingly provided through it). You may make what you like of this. I decline to take anything as fact until verified. But it is interesting because it contrasts with the other evidence quite strongly.

‘5.27 The narrative collected from two interviews conducted in Damascus over the period of 21 – 22 June 2017 differs. One interviewee stated that “members of” … an armed opposition group… “had evicted tenants from a house in Khan Shaykhun, replacing them with new tenants and the house was used for the storage of weapons, munitions and barrels some two months prior to the incident on 4 April 2017”. That house appeared to have been damaged at some time during the incident on 4 April 2017.’

I would like to know whether it was the interviewee, or the OPCW, which decided to use the phrase ‘ an armed opposition group’. There can, after all, be little doubt of which group this would have been if the story is true.

In para 5.28 there is also this interesting bit ‘He recalled that the roads were blocked and only ambulances “from a neighbouring country” and water tankers were allowed inside the affected area.’. Why were only those ambulances from a neighbouring country’ (no, not Israel) allowed into the area? If this is true, that is. It’s an odd thing to make up.

From 5.41 onwards, my eye was caught by the way in which the fact Finding mission had often been compelled to accept second-hand information. Medical facility A had discharged all its patients the day before the mission arrived. Instead they had to rely on the testimony of an unnamed doctor. Doctors ( see above) may possibly not be neutral actors in this matter.

At Medical Facility B, the patients had not been discharged but ‘the team was informed that all but one of the remaining patients who had been admitted with symptoms of chemical poisoning were in intensive care or were otherwise unable to be interviewed.

At Medical facility C ‘the team was informed that all remaining patients who had been admitted with symptoms of chemical poisoning were in intensive care or were otherwise unable to be interviewed.

Seeking information about Medical Facilities D, E and F, the team once again received their information from unidentified doctors. At Medical facility H Para 5.61) The team interviewed one doctor who was on duty at Medical Facility H (MF-H) when casualties started to arrive. The following is a summary of his testimony. The doctor did not have details or records of casualties related to the whole medical facility, aside from the number of deceased, and described the casualties who he personally attended to.’

I won’t go into the curious affair of the material provided by a mysterious volunteer and then through the Syrian government. It is of course as suspect as all the other indirect bits of information we have.

But I was struck by paragraph 5.107 ‘However, the FFM was informed that remnants of a munition from the impact crater (point 1 in Figure 5) have been secured and could be made available in the future.’ Why not now? And in any case, what is its chain of custody? How can we even know it came from where it would be said to come from?

As I said, the OPCW document seems to me quite rightly not to attribute blame, as it simply has no objective testable basis on which to do so. Anyone on any side or in any, profession who maintains that they *know* who did this seems to me to be bluffing. Anyone who reads this can see how very far away we are from a definite attribution of guilt. What’s more, any reader can see how very difficult it would now be to get evidence that would be any better. The site is still inaccessible. The event was months ago. What chance of getting a reliable chain of custody for reliable evidence?

I’m especially interested in the way in which the official world, which *must* have access to full details of Syria’s acknowledged official gas stocks, when they were destroyed aboard the MV Cape Ray, has yet to offer any comparison between what samples it has and the Cape Ray stocks. Surely it would be conclusive.

I have discussed elsewhere the possibility, more or less dismissed by the British Foreign Office, that the Islamist jihadis (backed by us) might have access to chemical weapons. I think this needs much more serious consideration, myself. In the meantime, do not be rushed into war and, if it comes to that, please urge your MPs, Deputies, Congressmen etc not to be rushed into it either.